


No Place Like Home

by halotolerant



Series: Musicals [2]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Bad Sex, Blow Jobs, Crafts, Dirty Talk, Getting to Know Each Other, Good Sex, Hobbies, Homecoming, M/M, Second Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 15:36:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3655650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/pseuds/halotolerant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No bother.” Martin shrugged his shoulders, aiming for a casual attitude. “And I didn’t want to assume… I mean, I can catch a bus from the end of your road - it’s not that late. I mean…  Am I?”</p><p>“Are you what? No, wait, don’t answer that, that’s too many options for when I’m this tired.” Douglas climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He looked drawn and weary, but not actively annoyed. “Look, Martin, what I’m realistically offering right now is a microwaved curry and a place to lie down before you fall down..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Additional Warnings** : Fic contains a brief reference to accidental gagging/vomiting. 
> 
> **Notes** : I knew while I was writing 'A Very Good Place to Start' that there was more story in my head, and a second story to follow it. Starting to write that story, this content began as a flashback, until I realised it really needed to be a fic by itself. It probably won't make huge sense without reading the first fic in the series first. I'm still hoping to write the longer sequel, muse willing *g* 
> 
> Following feedback about making it easier for some readers to load longer fic on their devices, I've split this into two chapters. It's the first time using that function for me, but if I've got it right both chapters should appear fairly simultaneously.
> 
> Many thanks once more to my amazing beta, **elfwhistletree** , for all she does <3

\- - -

One

\- - -

 

Martin didn’t know what to say.

 

All through the flight from Salzburg, he had been trying to come up with some sort of line for when they landed on home turf. Something that would be cool and low-key, and funny, and just a bit, well, suggestive - but not crude - and laid-back but enthusiastic, and sort of impressive in its nonchalance. The sort of thing that effortlessly fixed everything. The sort of thing Bogart got to say in _Casablanca_ , or Rock Hudson to Doris Day, or maybe Cary Grant in a Hitchcock film.

 

The sort of thing, frankly, that Douglas Richardson might say. Since Douglas, on this occasion, didn’t seem about to say it. 

 

The perfect formula was not fast in coming, however, and Martin was still anxiously at work on it even after they’d touched down, come to a halt and shut G-ERTI’s engines off - with the result that it was Douglas who first broke the silence, and in a weary grumble:

 

“Martin, tell me the light in the portacabin isn’t on?”

 

“If you like.” Martin cleared his throat. He was a little relieved, actually, to have had a script, as it were, handed to him. “I say, Douglas! The light in the portacabin isn’t on!”

 

From the other seat, Douglas sent over a narrow-eyed glare. “Yes, thanks for that. Funny how it doesn’t actually help.” He sighed, gesturing toward the glow of the distant building. “I mean bloody hell, what can Carolyn have to say to us that can’t wait until tomorrow? We’re neither of us flying anywhere until we’ve had eight hours down, not after a day like today.” And he shook his head, looking away to finish scribbling down his usual bare minimum of post-landing paperwork.

 

Martin wasn’t sure whether to agree, and if so how much of the statement to agree with. He settled for a non-committal sigh and a moment sagging back in his own seat before getting underway with his share of the post-flight checks (which was to say, all of them, at least if he wanted to have them actually done). He closed his eyes and tried once more to adjust.

 

He was suffering a dislocated, misaligned feeling, something perhaps akin to the pain that built in the inner ear if the atmospheric pressure outside the plane changed too swiftly - something requiring equalization of internal and external.

 

The sun had risen that day over Martin in one little bubble of reality, and was setting now with him in quite another. That was travel, after all – that was what flying meant, not just the actually being aloft but the time-changing _speed_ , the way you could get so far ahead of yourself it became tomorrow, or push backwards chasing the day before.

 

And if that could leave some sort of emotional equivalent of the inner ear reeling, well, he’d never had cause to find out until now. Or possibly for him it had only been part of the appeal - the ever-tempting possibility of one day maybe leaving himself behind altogether.

 

Today though, this morning, this once, Martin would have liked to stay still.

 

But moving was what they did, after all, and here they were, Douglas and himself, back in England, back in Fitton, having taxied G-ERTI along the old familiar runway and bumped across the ridges where the weeds broke up through the tarmac. They were back to where, after all their journeying, they always finally finished up, ready to reset themselves.

 

This, usually, was where they found their normal. Here, the temporary discomfort or imagined luxury of international jet setting receded and they found their way into the same old familiar shapes and shells of life.

 

Because, usually, they had to. Because, usually, there wasn’t really much choice.

 

Martin finally made himself get up and out of his seat, and indulged in a wide, yawning stretch, reaching his arms out sideways and tipping his head back. He was almost as tense now as he’d been relaxed when he’d drifted peacefully and pleasantly asleep the night before. Perhaps the soothing beginning made the end worse – like a gently washed towel, insufficiently tumble-dried and then forgotten about and gone stale and stiff.

 

Films had stories where credits rolled and the ending came, a firm statement: happy, together. A trek over the mountains to freedom and the sunrise. But in real life you had to actually make the trek, you couldn’t just enjoy the music and relax and assume.

 

He did agree with Douglas’ earlier statement. It had been a hell of day. Might not have started that way, but they’d not been able to stay still or safe or secure there, in that bubble, because you never could.

 

The simple facts of it – the way he’d explain it to Carolyn in a minute if she was indeed here, waiting for them – was that he and Douglas had been summoned to Salzburg airport for ten a.m. local time, had been in G-ERTI by noon, and then had had to wait over three hours whilst being assured they would get the cue to lift off at a moment’s notice. Then there’d been the flight, without benefit of cabin crew or caffeine, and they’d had nothing but a few miniscule bags of roasted peanuts to eat. The waiting around had drained the conversation out of them – that was what he’d say - and now they were bored and tired and thirsty and mutually monosyllabic.

 

Before all of that had been the morning. And that he was most certainly not telling Carolyn about.

 

It was relevant, though, because when you brought those two bits of day together, well, it made for a couple of pilots who weren’t really up to being summoned by their CEO for a conference, however one-sided.

 

It made for the beginning of a trek on a road Martin didn’t know, and could not be sure of.

 

Martin’s whole body had tightened during the flight into a sort of knot of aching muscles, sore with idleness and from carefully holding still in a flight deck that had seemed more cramped than on any trip previously. Now he arched his neck into another full-body stretch, going up on his tiptoes as he extended every muscle, tilting his head from side to side, and groaning as the vertebrae clicked.

 

He heard a slight sound in echo. A quick catch of breath.

 

Opening his eyes, he caught Douglas looking up at him. Douglas who, seconds earlier, had been looking exhausted, but who now had a certain focus in his eyes - a distinct air of renewed interest in life.

 

Douglas, whose gaze was sweeping over him, up and then down again.

 

That soft, warm gaze, which Martin had just started to come to understand.

 

Martin drew his limbs back in – he’d not meant to display himself, had forgotten to think of it - and felt heat rising under his skin. He tucked his shirt back into his trousers, his own breathing hitching a little as his fingers skimmed the skin of his stomach, brushing the waist of his boxers.

 

He ran one hand backwards over his hair. He thought Cary Grant might have done that.

 

Douglas’ eyes darkened, and then narrowed again. A smile was starting to play at the corners of his lips.

 

Martin felt himself grinning back - felt, deep inside, muscles relaxing and a low-burning ember reignite.

 

It had been during their last… encounter, early that morning, that their day had started to go wrong.

 

They’d woken still in the wide, white double bed at the Hotel Musicale, startled awake by a call from Carolyn to Douglas’ mobile – she had been relaying the first summons from the airport, anxious that they get back as soon as reasonably possible. And so the consciousness of limited time had permeated from the very start. Martin remembered a jumble - the two of them twisting together on the sheets without co-ordination, not quite sure which of them wanted what, desperate as travellers on the last day of a package holiday who are sickeningly aware that the world cannot be comprehended quickly enough.

 

Or maybe that had just been how Martin had felt. Douglas had seemed more confident at first, had kissed him hard, and made some sort of joke about the queue at the runway coping without them for a while, about how he wanted to try something new, and then had kissed him again, kissed tender and insistent, kissed Martin’s lips and neck and down his chest, and then…

 

And then… Well, Douglas’ confidence had to have taken a knock, anyway, at what had then ensued.

 

They could have talked about it at the time. Or they could have given each other a bit of space. Both might have helped the mood of the rest of the day, might have been easy and simple solutions. But with Carolyn phoning again – twice - to chivvy them on, and with all the stress and tiresome minutiae of clearing the room, of packing and checking out of the hotel, they had been able to undertake neither.

 

Martin had tried to make it clear in small, subtle (Cary Grant-esque) ways that as far as he was concerned everything was fine, and that he didn’t mind what had happened. But then, his skills at subtlety had long been on a par with his abilities in fire juggling.

 

And he’d rather suspected that Douglas only found his reassurances annoying, and an unwanted reminder.

 

Martin hadn’t known what to say, and with each increasing moment of silence coming up with the right answer had seemed more imperative, and more impossible.

 

But that had all been before. The important thing was that, now, Douglas was looking up at him like a man more than ready to learn from experience, and very eager to attempt it, and Martin could feel the relief soaking through him even as he took a step backwards in order to have the flight-deck door to brace against.

 

Wriggles of heat were squirming through his body, and the tension of the day was drowning in something sweeter and deeper. Douglas was coming closer, hands going to Martin’s shoulders, smile hungrily eager and with something more behind it, something hot and covetous that made Martin shiver happily even as sweat broke out across his back.

 

Maybe Martin had made a mountain trek out of a molehill.

 

“I want to…” Douglas began, and then cleared his throat. His daze darted to Martin’s, a grin forming. “I say, Chief? I’ve a got a suggestion for something we could do. But how does that sound to you?”

 

The words were light, teasing, but Martin still had to take a deep, shuddering breath, before he opened his mouth to speak, and then…

 

…leapt away from the door in alarm at a sudden, sharp tapping noise right by his ear.

 

Douglas, who had stumbled backwards from him in turn, was frowning in confusion. Martin twisted to look behind himself.

 

The noise on the door was repeated, accompanied by an easily recognisable stream of words:

 

“Hello? Martin? Douglas? Chaps? It’s me! You’re back!”

 

Martin shot another hungry glance at Douglas, at the flush of his cheeks and the darkness of his eyes, and felt the damp cling of sweat on himself, the pressure in his crotch as the fabric of his trousers strained against him.

 

Relief, of any kind, was not to be found yet it seemed.

 

Douglas closed his eyes for a moment, letting out a long, slow breath. “That light in the portacabin,” he said, wearily. “You lied to me, Martin. It was on.”

 

And then, before Martin could say anything or move again, Douglas had stepped forwards, ducking his head and planting a quick kiss on Martin’s mouth, briefly capturing Martin’s lower lip in a sharp and sparking tug between his teeth, and then pulling away.

 

“You’re a total sod, Douglas,” Martin hissed. And then winced, because Cary Grant, it wasn’t.

 

Douglas raised his eyebrow. “Didn’t hear you complaining, chum.”

 

Martin huffed at him, eyes narrowed, but a glad echo of relief at the reply bubbled underneath, as he was sure Douglas could see. If Douglas was feeling able to joke about it all, then maybe Martin had said the right thing somewhere along the line. Maybe they really could make this adjustment, sooner or later, anyway.

 

And it would just have to be later, it seemed.

 

After a final deep breath, Martin reached for the flight deck door, unlocked it and pulled it open.

 

“Yes, hello Arthur!” he said, as genially as he could, and only gasping a little as a flurry of Arthur-shaped energy engulfed him in a hug. “Did you miss us?”

 

“Of course, Skip!” Arthur fairly beamed with joy, and pulled Martin back into one more quick hug before attempting the same with Douglas, only to be held at bay by a magisterial hand which he took and shook several times with almost as much vigour. “We missed you loads! It was ever so quiet without you! And without G-ERTI, obviously. To be fair, she does make more noise than any of us, or all of us put together, but…”

 

“We missed you too, Arthur,” Martin interrupted. “And I’m sorry we weren’t there for your party. I hope it went well? I’ve got your present at my house, I’ll bring it round some time.”

 

“Ah ha ha!” Arthur jumped back from them and beamed some more. Quite undoubtedly had he been possessed of a tail he would have been wagging up a small tornado with it. “I thought you’d be sad to miss the party, so I’ve brought the party to you! Yes! I’ve got all my photos in a slideshow on Mum’s laptop, just waiting in the portacabin, and there’s leftover cake and chocolate fingers and sweets and things, and juice and party hats! Welcome home!”

 

Martin tried to smile. His lingering arousal was withering resentfully away even as he spoke. “That’s, um…. very sweet of you, Arthur.” He yawned again, and, deciding that he might as well have the benefits as well as trials that came with an Arthur, added “And perhaps, before we start, you could boil the kettle?”

 

\- - -

 

“Oh yes, that looks like great fun,” Martin said, for the ninth or tenth time; he was running low on variety, and Arthur didn’t seem to mind providing the response was positive.

 

It was now a little after seven in the evening. Arthur’s recounting of his Burger King birthday party had been extremely thorough and the accompanying photographic slideshow most lavish. There were photos of Arthur in his crown, photos of Arthur with people, with other people, with the counter staff and with food as consumed by Arthur. There were photos of the seating area, photos of the Gents toilets and photos of the bins – Arthur had left no detail undocumented in his quest to bring Martin and Douglas the full birthday party experience.

 

And, since Arthur had also brewed some very passable tea, and kept the Haribo Starmix flowing, Martin was pleased to reflect that both he and Douglas had up till now made a decent stab at being suitably receptive and interested and not asleep.

 

He did keep having to stifle his yawns, however. It wasn’t like he was unused to working peculiar shift patterns, but considering that he’d not exactly got to bed early the night before… or, rather, that he’d got to bed, but not exactly to sleep…

 

Memories flooded through him, and he felt a flush creeping up his neck. He reached for his paper cup of pineapple juice; his mouth had gone dry.

 

It seemed like blasphemy against all he held most dear even to think it, but Martin couldn’t help a small regret that the ash cloud hadn’t left them grounded just a little longer.

 

It had been good. So good. That morning aside, Douglas been a more than (much more than) competent, confident sexual partner and even besides that there had been the other stuff, the little looks, the quiet touches, the talking… things Martin would have liked more time to understand before he had to do more than just enjoy them.

 

“Well, Arthur,” Martin heard Douglas saying now. “I think we can safely attest that Martin and I now know as much about your party as if we’d been there, and indeed a great deal beyond that particular pale.”

 

“Oh, good!” Arthur’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “Would you like any more cake?”

 

“Alas, one can find a surfeit in all things, even ‘Colin the Caterpillar’ chocolate cake.” Douglas stood up, brushing down his jacket. “And I for one would quite like to drive home before the sugar crash really kicks in and I fall asleep at the wheel.”

 

Martin pushed his chair back too, rising, swallowing to bring moisture to a mouth dry with indecision and desire. “Um, well, Douglas? I was going to get the bus, what with my van being… anyway, I was going to get the bus, but I could drive you, if you like, if you’re worried?”

 

“Oh for heaven’s sake, I’m not exactly going to…” Douglas stopped, mid-sentence, tirade squealing to a halt, and blinked at him.

 

He had actually forgotten, Martin realised. Douglas had forgotten, briefly, the ways that the world had changed. Not seen the ways that Martin’s offer might be something other than a veiled insult or an attempt at Captain-style busy-bodying. As it happened, Martin would privately admit to at least a 60% busy-bodying quotient – he thought the risk of Douglas falling into a doze soon was fairly significant – but it certainly wasn’t the only reason he’d made the offer.

 

Staying at Douglas’ side now, after today, after this morning, might be the worst possible decision, but it was what Martin wanted to do - a new, unsettling instinct.

 

He’d not forgotten what they’d been interrupted in on the flight deck, even if Douglas had, and if his mind – and Douglas’ – struggled to adjust to the new situation, his body felt just fine about its new expectations that evenings meant Douglas and nakedness.

 

And there it was, the dizzy sense of _jamais vu_ at having that thought - and about _Douglas_ \- here in the portacabin with Arthur and the lingering smell of sugar and old paper and damp, and the ‘Olde Sporran Highland Glen’ air-freshener Arthur favoured purely because he loved operating aerosols, and had found a job lot of them at Poundland.

 

This was the place they always returned to, after all. Where normal restarted and life reset. Martin couldn’t entirely ignore a fear that if they parted now and drifted back into usualness, all that had changed might come undone, and disperse away.

 

Douglas also seemed unsettled for a moment, but his expression swiftly softened into a slight, rather mischievous smile.

 

“Well, thank you Martin. On reflection, yes, I would like to take up your kind offer. Or, as the poet Sir P. McCartney has it, ‘ _Baby, thou canst drive my car.’_ ”

 

“Douglas!” Martin hissed, but Arthur was absorbed in shutting down his computer, and besides - understanding people in Ipswich courses notwithstanding - Arthur was unlikely to deduce anything from Martin blushing. Martin blushed whenever there was a ‘Y’ in the day.

 

“Right then,” Douglas fumbled in his pocket and brought out a key ring. “I’ll fetch the car round, you gather the luggage.”

 

“Oh? But I thought I’d just offered to…”

 

“Martin, it is indeed a bleak, Orwellian hinterland in the pay-and-display area, I quite agree. But I think I can fetch the Lexus all the way from there to here without actually collapsing at the wheel. And I will have the added benefit of knowing where I parked it, which frankly speeds up the process.”

 

“Oh chaps,” Arthur said suddenly, looking up from his laptop bag. “Isn’t it awfully nice to have everything back to normal again?”

 

Martin met Douglas’ eye. Neither of them said anything.

 

\- - -

 

Martin was only waiting in the airport crosswinds for a few minutes before a sleek black car emerged into the secondhand light from the portacabin’s windows, and Douglas climbed out to change seats with a wary look on his face.

 

“You understand,” Douglas said as they both fastened their seatbelts, “that I’m letting you drive now purely so as not to confuse Arthur? That I’m in no way actually concerned that I might fall asleep?”

 

Martin bit back his grin, slipping the Lexus into gear and enjoying the way that – unlike certain vans – it seemed to believe it had a first gear and possibly even want to achieve it. “Yes of course, Douglas.” He took a breath. “You just want me handling your gearstick, I know.”

 

Maybe Rock Hudson. Not quite Cary Grant. Certainly not Humphrey Bogart. But it seemed to amuse Douglas at least.

 

“Hmmm.” Douglas raised his eyebrow. “Yes, well, if there was any doubt about _that_ I really would have been doing something wrong.”

 

The words hung in the chilly air between them for a moment too long, or so Martin felt. It might have been another joke, he only wished he could be sure.

 

“You weren’t doing anything wrong,” he started trying to say, reflexively, but Douglas waved the words away.

 

“Please, Martin, don’t… It’s fine. I’m a big boy. I can take it.”

 

There really was a joke to be found in that, Martin was certain – and again maybe that had been entirely the intention of the words. But he didn’t trust himself to find it safely.

 

How ridiculous, really, that he could find himself stumbling over how best to insult Douglas properly, over choosing words to tease him. They’d been bickering comfortably for five years; it had been about the easiest thing in Martin’s life.

 

But then he’d never in all that time thought Douglas remotely cared about what he said to him.

 

Once again, as Martin deliberated, the silence drew out, and Douglas sighed before clearing his throat with a dismissive note and shuffling over in his seat, turning away to gaze out of the window.

 

Martin bit his tongue and kept his eyes on the road.

 

The car’s heating – up to full blast to clear the fog from the windscreen – had laid a carbon-smelling warmth through the interior. Martin scrabbled at the dashboard to turn it down – the last he needed was to get drowsy himself. His own sugar crash was hitting him right between the eyes, and he tried to force himself into alertness, to pay attention to the little details of the passing scenery, to the rows of council bungalows that made up the outskirts of Fitton, many of them at this time of the evening with their curtains still open, front rooms spilling glowing scenes into the night.

 

All the graceful normality of other people; it made his heart ache sometimes.

 

He became aware of a faint whuffling snore from the seat next to him. Douglas was still turned away, but quite clearly no longer thinking about anything in particular.

 

Martin let out a long, slow breath, feeling slightly guilty at his own sense of relief at a conversation most definitively ended, and got back to focusing on the road.

 

The arousal he’d been fighting earlier had faded again as the energy drained out of him, and he had no idea if going to Douglas’ house now would achieve anything more than depositing Douglas safely home. But he was very glad to be here, doing that.

 

\- - -

Two

\- - -

 

Douglas’ house was, naturally, at the more upmarket end of Fitton, in a world of ivy-covered brick and double-fronts and brass doorknockers, of plaster lions holding shields and fantail lights and foliage. Martin was able to drive right over the pavement and onto the forecourt of 4 Keats End, and there he paused, looking at the building in front of him before he cut out the headlights.

 

It had been several years now since he’d been here last. Since that trip he’d taken with Helena Richardson’s brown sauce, which had seemed like nothing much at the time, but which had started ripples he’d never expected. He’d come to this house to save an anniversary, and actually more or less triggered the breakdown of a marriage. Except that wasn’t fair – it wasn’t like he’d lied or cheated or been a Tai Chi instructor. He’d just been the outsider that saw the crack before it became a chasm.

 

He felt an uncomfortable awareness of how Helena once would have come here, Douglas at her side, and in the air between them all the intimacy of homecoming. In this house they had slept, and slept together, and been tender - maybe even kissed in that very doorway under the elegant carriage lamp. He could picture them there in a soft light, with snow falling, mistletoe hung over the door, all Richard Curtis film perfect, and the miserable feeling that pushed through him wasn’t even all jealousy. That was a loss Douglas had suffered, and one he’d told no one about and sought no help for, not until he could joke about it.

 

Sitting back in the seat, feeling the engine still thrumming, Martin cast a glance at Douglas’ slumped form – the soft droop of his mouth, the slight flicker of his eyelashes as he breathed – and wondered whether it was the right or wrong thing to think this much about Douglas’ sexual history.

 

And then, really, right or wrong by what standard? Morally suspect or simply ill advised? Like anyone who spent too much of their lives waiting in public spaces, he’d read a lot of magazine advice columns; all he could really recall of their distilled wisdom was to be in some nebulous way ‘yourself’.

 

Yes, because that had served Martin so well, thus far in his life.

 

After all, in being himself, Martin was a man. And that seemed, apparently, miraculously, to be something Douglas was far from averse to. But equally, whatever the problems that had driven apart Douglas and Helena, whatever had gone wrong in their marital bed, it almost certainly hadn’t been Douglas trying to give his first blowjob, and gagging on a cock and ending up red-faced and crestfallen, and unable to stop from being slightly sick on the floor…

 

Martin closed his eyes and shook his head, wincing again at the memory of the morning, still far too clear in his mind.

 

If only there had been more time then to talk about it, Martin thought he even might have figured out the right thing to say – he refused to believe that would have been absolutely impossible. But they’d had to hurry then, and now they were here, and if he had no idea what to say he had still less of a sense of when he ought to approach the topic. And now they were no longer in neutral territory.

 

Turning off the ignition, he reached over to give Douglas a gentle shove.

“Here we are. Last call before the terminus.”

 

Martin undid his own seatbelt and climbed out, letting the rush of cold air through the open car door aid Douglas’ return to the waking world. They’d had so few bags that Martin had been able to shove them on the back seat rather than bothering to open the boot. He saw now that one of the bags had picked up some airfield mud and trailed a smudge of it across the leather upholstery – he pulled it out quickly, wiping at the seat ineffectively with his hand.

 

Douglas, still seated, stretched and blinked up at him with the slight daze of the recently woken. “Oh we’re… Ah. Yes. Oh, don’t bother with those. We can get them in the morning.”

 

“No bother.” Martin shrugged his shoulders, aiming for a casual attitude. “And I didn’t want to assume… I mean, I can catch a bus from the end of your road - it’s not that late. I mean…  Am I?”

 

“Are you what? No, wait, don’t answer that, that’s too many options for when I’m this tired.” Douglas climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He looked drawn and weary, but not actively annoyed. “Look, Martin, what I’m realistically offering right now is a microwaved curry and a place to lie down before you fall down. Now, if you’d rather get back to your own place, I’d quite understand and you’d be welcome to the car. Well, providing you could park it somewhere to stop it getting keyed.”

 

Martin swallowed. A great many of his instincts were screaming at him to get away, away from the conversation and the complication and all the feelings and the ability to mess everything up.

 

And then there was Douglas, standing there, rumpled and sleepy and just as alone.

 

“Honestly,” Martin said “I think a Lexus left anywhere near Parkside Terrace probably wouldn’t have wheels by tomorrow morning.”

 

Douglas’ expression didn’t entirely relax. He’d turned away from Martin to look at his house, frowning. “Very well. Good. Come on in, then.” He walked up to the front door, getting the key in the lock, and then turned to hold it open as Martin brought in the bags.

 

\- - -

 

The black plastic tray in the microwave slowly rotated, and Martin watched the little blue numbers on the digital display count down to zero. Douglas had offered ready meals of any kind (providing they were curry), and had retrieved two boxes from the freezer compartment of a huge fridge.

 

That was the answer, in a word, to the question of what Douglas’ house was like inside: huge. Huge, and oddly empty – not actually empty, because there was stuff everywhere and it wasn’t terribly tidy, but a sort of gap-toothed sense of absence. In the hall a lamp stood on the floor, where (you could see from the dents in the carpet) a small table was clearly intended to support it. The kitchen was large and modern and featured a bread-maker and a complicated rack of subtly different knives, but had no toaster and an incongruous Tesco Value kettle, a twin of Martin’s own, on the sleek granite worktops.

 

“I keep meaning to get an agent and have this place listed for sale,” Douglas said now, uncapping some elderflower cordial and mixing two tall glasses. He looked around his kitchen, frowning slightly. “But, oh, it’s a heck of a faff to organize – have to square all the lawyers with it too, for the settlement - and then of course people want to come and view it, and I’m never in and… well, I haven’t. Obviously. Keep meaning to have a right old tidy, too, but, well, there’s never time, is there?”

 

“It’s a nice house,” Martin observed neutrally. He was leaning forward against the kitchen island on folded arms; Douglas stood on the other side. Between them on the island there was a little wire tray filled with earthenware pots on which were painted the names of various herbs – they were all empty, apart from one which held two rubber bands and an AAA battery.

 

Douglas looked around himself again, raising one eyebrow. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

 

Martin tore his gaze away and back to the little flickering blue numbers. He was so tired, too tired to respond to whatever was making that wistfulness in Douglas’ voice, too tired to indulge the dangerous wish to go round the island and reach out for him and try to kiss him into calm. That might be very much the wrong thing to do. No, he just had to get through the evening without getting it all wrong, and look at everything again tomorrow.

 

He still wasn’t at all sure that it had been the better choice, to stay on here rather than head to his own home and his own bed. Two weeks ago, if for some reason he had come here, he was sure Douglas would have apologised for nothing and probably found some way to show off into the bargain. Now, Martin’s presence seemed only to be making Douglas uncomfortable.

 

The microwave pinged triumphantly into the silence, and Douglas went to it, plates in hand and dished up. “There. Now, where do you want to eat?”

 

Martin shrugged, wide eyed. “I’m not really used to having options. Um. Where is there?”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Douglas looked rather flustered, which made Martin wince. “Well, there’s the dining room, except that’s usually rather cold if I’ve not been in the house for a while. Or the living room, with trays, or in here – I can get the stools for the island from the conservatory, it won’t take a moment.”

 

“No, please don’t bother.” Martin did come round the island now, reaching for the plate with the bright orange curry - his tikka masala. “The living room is fine. I always eat on my futon.”

 

Entering the living room and seeing two sofas, Martin wondered briefly whether it might be better for them to sit apart, but the second sofa was mostly buried in unopened letters, takeaway flyers, paperbacks with their spines broken, old copies of the _Radio Times_ and a suit in a dry-cleaning cover, and so he came down to perch by Douglas’ side. After a brief debate over the TV remote, they settled on the back end of an episode of _DIY SOS_ , to be followed by something Attenborough-ish about African wildlife.

 

Food finished, Martin fell into a haze of digestion and watched some lionesses surround their prey, and then the approach of hyenas to the carcass, and finally thought of a remark to make, appropriate if not quite Bogartian.

 

“Douglas? I say, which one do you think is the amigo…dog?” Martin’s voice trailed off. Douglas, he saw now, had keeled over very slightly to the side and was sleeping again.

 

It really had been a hell of a day, for both of them.

 

Martin put both their trays safely out of the way on the coffee table and leant back himself, feeling a strange mixture of peace and anxiety. He watched a herd of elephants going to the watering hole. At some point the elephants began wearing sombreros, and he rather suspected his eyes had closed.

 

He woke up disorientated, dry mouthed and with the discomfort of a full bladder, to find the TV in the midst of a documentary about pension funds. He’d moved in his sleep to become curled into Douglas’ side, he realised, and had drooled slightly onto the other man’s shoulder, leaving a wet patch on his shirt. The room was colder now, and Martin shivered as he got up to go to the downstairs bathroom.

 

Emerging again into the hall, he had an idea and went quietly to the kitchen, getting the kettle on and finding a mostly-full box of decaf tea bags in one of the echoing cupboards. There wasn’t any milk that he could find, so he kept the brew weak and added an extra dash of cold water, and then carried the mugs through to the living room.

 

“Hey, Douglas,” he said, nudging him gently. “Bedtime cuppa.”

 

“What? Oh, bloody hell!” Douglas sat forward, rubbing his eyes and scowling. “Dammit.” He took a deep breath. “I assure you, Martin, I don’t usually tend to doze off quite this often of an evening, especially when I’ve got…” he cut himself off abruptly and blinked, reaching out for the tea. “Thank you,” he said, taking a sip, not giving any indication that he would finish his sentence.

 

“I was asleep too,” Martin offered, peering over the rim of his mug. “It’s been a long day. I just thought a hot drink, and then probably bed? I mean, I don’t mean…” He’d been spinning round in his own head too long, and now he couldn’t stop the spill of words. “Obviously I like sleeping next to you, because I just have been, and really I’d like to again – not that I have to, not if it’s less good for you – but I’m tired too, I mean…”

 

Douglas stared at him for a minute, then shook his head, set his mug down carefully on a side table and looked up again. “Martin,” he said softly. “Come here.”

 

Martin frowned, generally keen but not quite sure what had been proposed.

 

Douglas inclined his head, beckoning, and opened his arms. “Come on. This, I promise you, I really do know how to do.”

 

Douglas was smiling softly again, and Martin didn’t know what part of what he’d said had been what brought this back, but he was ready to sigh with delight for it.

 

Martin didn’t have to move very far to sit straddling Douglas’ lap, knees digging into the sofa cushions on either side of Douglas’ hips, but it felt like another reality shift again. And it was so much easier here, like this, to think. Easier to be this, have this, when all was close and intense and discussed with their bodies, and not the awkward pauses of microwaving curry, intimacies better suited to established couples than… whatever they were.

 

Martin couldn’t help being conscious of the room, still. Of the sofa – that this might have been where Helena kissed her husband, where even her predecessors might have sat, not to mention some who might have occurred in parallel. Unless of course this _wasn’t_ , unless that sofa was the one buried under the various crap.

 

Douglas’ arms pulled Martin in closer, and Martin let out a squawk as his balance deserted him, then some more noises in a lower tone as he came to rest with a thud and felt his body cleaving closer to Douglas’.

 

“Yes, that’s it,” Douglas said softly. “That’s better. Shush now…”

 

Martin shuddered and gasped as Douglas’ mouth pressed gently against his, and then as Douglas’ tongue came wet and soft to part the seam of Martin’s lips, dry as they were with sleep and anxious breathing. Martin had been worked up and worn out too many times that day already, and too much of him was aching, and he still couldn’t think what to say, and kissing solved very little of that, and he didn’t care.

 

For a while kissing was all they did. And Martin didn’t intend to start moving, only found after a while that he was, rocking himself slightly into the under-curve of Douglas’ belly with an erection that was probably not going to find full mast that night, but felt good all the same. He was so tired, still, but he was touching Douglas and the heaviness - the impossibility of the evening - was draining away.

 

“I seem to have got everything wrong today, and tonight,” Douglas said after a time, lifting his hand and stroking the back of his fingers carefully down the side of Martin’s face, soothing the words and forestalling Martin’s alarm. “If anyone had told me a year ago – six months ago – that you could make me this nervous…” He shook his head. “But you’re nervous too, aren’t you?”

 

In another tone, the question might not have been kind. At another time in their lives, it might not have been a question. But as it was it made Martin want more than ever to know what the thing to say was, what the reassurance ought to be, what magic words let them keep on together.

 

Letting out a sigh, he curled down into Douglas, because it was easier without being eye to eye and because it was lovely to feel the warmth gathered between them.

 

“I’m always nervous. You know that.”

 

“That’s what’s so remarkable about you,” Douglas murmured, stroking his back again. “Because I can’t imagine feeling like that and keeping going.”

 

“Yes, well,” Martin could feel his skin heating up again, and not with the tingling glow of arousal, more than aching-sharp of resentful embarrassment. He sat up and leant back, needing the cooler air now. “Well, like I say. I’ve got used to it.”

 

“I didn’t mean to…” Douglas closed his eyes for a moment, his hands dropping to his sides and Martin was stuck alone suddenly, a grown man in another’s lap, without the dignity of being sure of a welcome.

 

Douglas wasn’t hard, Martin realised. Not at all.

 

“Martin,” Douglas said.

 

Martin looked up at him and wondered what the women who’d seen this room, sat on this sofa or the other under these sorts of circumstances, would do now. What they’d think of him and his efforts.

 

“Martin, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. That’s what I’ve been trying to say - I’m tired, as you can no doubt tell, and the smooth-talking module in my head is flashing a low-fuel warning.”

 

Martin couldn’t help a weary smile. “Did you try bashing the control panel? Those warning lights can be tricky things.”

 

“Well, I thought I might try shutting everything down and sleeping a solid eight or nine hours before rebooting again. How about it?”

 

“Sounds good to me.”

 

Martin started to get himself up from Douglas’ lap as a first step, which was easier said than done; he couldn’t quite figure out whether it would be more awkward to roll sideways or shuffle slowly backwards and down, and when after a moment’s delay he began the sideways tilt, Douglas – probably thinking they were just going to stay still a while - had reached for his tea, with which Martin collided.

 

“Careful!” Martin cried out, trying to draw back, too late to prevent a decent wave of tea spreading over the cushions and the fine brown leather. “Oh God, I’m sorry! Honestly, I don’t mean to keep doing this.”

 

“Oh don’t worry about it.” Douglas shrugged his shoulders calmly, taking another sip. “I hate this sofa. Come on. I’m taking the executive decision that we’re sharing a bed based on the fact that I cannot in any way be arsed to get sheets out and make up the spare room, and also that I freely predict I will sleep so heavily as to make as much difference to your night as sharing a bed with a particularly large pillow.”

 

Martin disentangled himself and waited awkwardly for a moment for Douglas, twisting his hands together.

\- - -


	2. Chapter 2

\- - -

Three

\- - -

 

As Martin woke up, his brain took a moment to untangle itself from a conviction that he was trapped in the bedrooms department at IKEA. Gradually he came to the realisation that the thick duvet and silky linen cocooning him were real, and blinked his eyes and remembered where he was.

 

Douglas’ bedroom was at the back of his house, sheltered from what meagre road noise there was, and Martin wasn’t sure what had woken him up. Next to him, Douglas’ regular breathing suggested he was still deep under. Turning over onto his side to find a cool spot for his feet to kick into, Martin closed his eyes and tried to drift asleep again.

 

But the thoughts that had woken with him wouldn’t go away. Even with his eyes closed he could see the room around him. The tall chest of drawers, the wardrobe whose contents he didn’t know, the dressing table complete with vanity mirror near the window.

 

This had been the marital bedroom then, almost certainly, and Martin wondered how much of this room Douglas hated.

 

He was aware of Douglas too. Of his proximity, his warmth. Martin’s body had become used to waking up next to Douglas, and it knew what it wanted from that situation. Martin bit his lip and turned again, trying to relieve the pressure on his crotch.

 

The minutes ticked by, and Martin was getting uncomfortably hot under the covers and ever further away from sleep.

 

Eventually, and with careful, muted movements, he sat up and slid his legs out, then stood up, enjoying the fresh air on his bare skin – he’d gone to bed in only his boxers. He stood for a moment, stretching, and then thought of the night before, in the aeroplane and afterwards.

 

The bulge in his boxers twitched, and Martin made himself resist the urge to reach down and rub at it, or to get back into bed and try and summon a response from Douglas. In Salzburg, he might have tried that, but this was a new world, and the rules were still unclear, and he didn’t know what to do, any more than he knew what to say. Offering a blow job, now – might that seem like superiority? Like showing off?

 

Going over to the chair where he’d left his clothes neatly folded the night before, he pulled back on the t-shirt he’d been wearing under his uniform the day before. He thought it would probably be reasonable for him to ask to use Douglas’ washing machine before he left, rather than have to face competing for the shared, smelly thing at his house-share. Douglas might not want him to stay for much of the day – and Martin couldn’t, anyway, he had a van to collect before the garage’s closing time – but surely he could manage one quick wash cycle? 

 

The alarm clock on the bedside table by Douglas’ head read only just past eight. Douglas probably wouldn’t want to be woken yet.

 

But then Martin didn’t plan to get back into bed, and he couldn’t exactly just sit or stand in the room watching Douglas like the romantic lead in that vampire romance novel he’d read when it – and he – had been abandoned in a pilot’s lounge in Rouen.  

 

Treading across the carpet as lightly as he could, Martin nudged the slightly open door and slipped out onto the landing. The night before as they’d stumbled wearily towards sleep there’d been no time for a tour, and despite his intentions to go in down in search of tea, Martin couldn’t help looking with interest at the flight of stairs leading up to the second floor.

 

He wouldn’t open any closed doors, he told himself. He wouldn’t pry, but he was curious.

 

He wanted to understand Douglas.

 

On the second floor there was another, small spare bedroom with a neat shelf of children’s books – the _Harry Potter_ series, Narnia, some Ladybird early readers, something about rainbow fairies and other picture books. The room was bright and smartly decorated and much the tidiest part of the house that he’d seen. Too tidy, really, for a room a child used with any frequency.

 

Then there was a room with gym equipment and a Wii Fit set-up. Another small bathroom, which he made use of, and then a fourth room that had its door closed, and which he left alone.

 

At the end of the corridor, separate from the main staircase, another set of stairs rose up, a short, twisting spiral brightly lit by an overhead skylight that he supposed must lead to a loft conversion.

 

He climbed up, looking around him. Whereas the walls lower down were magnolia and bare, the walls around this staircase were tightly covered with framed prints of what seemed to be medieval scenes. There was a strange, astringent chemical smell in the air.

 

There was no door at the top, and no landing either – Martin simply stepped up from the stairs and into the loft. It was large though low-ceilinged, and the light came streaming in from more skylights, showing clearly the medley of tools and equipment strewn over several trestle tables; craft knives and cutting boards, stacks of foam, Fimo modeling clay, pieces of dowelling and small paint pots and various half-squeezed glues - no doubt the origin of the smell. Martin looked about the room in astonishment. It was the first part of the house that looked as though at no point in its existence had it ever featured in a catalogue.

 

And there, near the further wall, the thing being created; it looked like a row of houses but Martin wasn’t sure, and stepped closer to look…

 

“Yes, well, some of us do have hobbies outside our work,” a voice said, and Martin spun round in alarm and dismay to see Douglas, wrapped in a dressing gown, standing at the top of the stair, watching him.

 

Archipelagos of heat erupted through Martin’s skin, regret crashing fast into shame. “I’m… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… well, I mean, of course I _meant_ to, I didn’t come up here under hypnotic suggestion. But I didn’t mean to be… I hope you don’t mind?”

 

Of course Douglas would mind. It was his house, his space – if he’d somehow arrived in Martin’s attic without being asked, and gone through it, Martin would have been furious…

 

But Douglas, leaning against the banister, smiled fondly at him. “Not at all.”

 

Martin blinked. He couldn’t understand that. Couldn’t understand any of this, it seemed.

 

“I wanted to show you all this,” Douglas continued, taking the last step up to come towards him. “I can’t say I wasn’t rather hoping to have a bet with you first about what I kept up here – admit it, you’d never have got that one right – but I was always planning to show you. You see, I know that with you, oh master of _Flight Simulator ‘95_ , I’ve got an audience that has no leg to stand on in calling this either sad, geeky or pointless.”

 

Martin let that one pass, given the circumstances – they could discuss best practice and appropriate pilot skill maintenance on another day – and gestured to the model, still waiting for his pulse to calm. “So, um, is that something you’ve made, then?”

 

“Something I’m still making.” Douglas walked over to the model and switched on a lamp to better illuminate it. “This is just one section, the first I finished. I need to make two more like it and join them together.”

 

He spoke with a quiet pride, and stroked the tip of one finger over the side of the model, caressingly. Seeing that did nothing for Martin’s blood pressure, which made him feel even more ridiculous as he managed to stammer something else out.  

 

“It’s… it’s beautiful. A medieval street, is it?”

 

Douglas grinned. “Yes. The most exciting medieval street there was. The old London Bridge. You know, the one that was falling down? I’ve got some artist’s impressions to work from, and some old descriptions and woodcuts, and what’s missing I fill in with my imagination. The houses sort of perched on the bridge – I’m doing the bridge itself as a separate piece, afterwards – I have to know first what kind of weight it needs to support.”

 

Martin, studying the model more closely, saw the little figures Douglas had placed leaning out of the windows of the tall, thin buildings – the angry woman shaking a fist at a man emptying a chamber-pot from above her, the drunk man being pulled back in by his friends – and smiled. Every brick had been composed with attention to detail, the little pieces of moss and lichen, the carefully distressed painting on the wooden signs, the wispy smoke coming from the chimneys - one with a tiny bird’s nest wedged beside it, containing a miniscule yellow chick.

 

He looked up at Douglas, smiling in delight, and was warmed to find the smile echoed back. In a minute, they might be touching again - it all might be easy in a moment.

 

Martin laughed, and let the words spill again. “It’s just… amazing, Douglas. I had no idea you could… You’re right, I would _never_ have guessed this was your hobby in a million years. I’d probably have said, oh,” he made elaborate scoffing noises at his own cluelessness, searching for amusing ideas, “oh, maybe cheese tasting or, or some sort of gallery of your girlfriends, or…”

 

“Yes, well.” And Martin was reaching into thin air too late, as Douglas was sighing and turning away, switching off the lamp and making for the stairs. “How about some breakfast?”

 

\- - -

 

The last thing Martin wanted to do next was start an argument over food. But the situation in the kitchen was not ideal.

 

“I can understand not having any bread, Douglas – I don’t get through it in time by myself to make it worth buying either – but how can you not have cereal?”

 

It wasn’t the right thing to ask – Martin realised that even before he saw Douglas bristling in response, but too late to take it back.

 

“Bacon, Martin, is the god of breakfast foodstuffs. And better yet, it can in fact be eaten at any time of day, suiting the schedule of someone who is often around at strange times, someone like, oh, say an airline pilot.”

 

“Yes, but just bacon, by itself?” Martin protested, closing the door of the last kitchen cupboard he’d searched and leaning back against the worktop. He had a legitimate point to make, he wasn’t just trying to argue and the only way to prove that which he could think of was to, well, argue it. “Any cereal bars then? Frusili? Nutri-Grain?”

 

Douglas chucked the unopened bacon packet onto the kitchen island with a disparaging grunt. “Well, if I’d known I would be hosting someone who ate that sort of thing, I wouldn’t have chucked out the old sack of kibble from the basement after the gerbil died. I mean, I understand the idea of health, but will one bacon breakfast hurt you?”

 

Martin folded his arms. “I just don’t think my digestion will thank me for starting the day with fried bacon accompanied by fried bacon with a side of cooking oil.” And it wouldn’t; today was going to be hard enough without a roiling stomach-ache.

 

“Fine, look.” Douglas went back to the fridge and opened the freezer compartment, rooting about in it for a moment before drawing up a packet. “Here we are. Sausage and mash ready meal, microwaves in five minutes. How about I thaw this out, scoop out the mash and feed that to you? I’m willing to take on the sausages in the aid of the cause.”

 

“Yes. OK. Thank you.” Martin didn’t relish the idea, but it was obviously the best compromise on offer. He felt flustered and unhappy with the tension – he hadn’t wanted an argument, but he wasn’t entirely sure Douglas hadn’t – and went to take the meal, carrying it over to the microwave, automatically reading the instructions twice before dialing in the heat setting and cooking time.

 

He leant back once more against the kitchen counter. Douglas had gone over to the hob to reach down a pan, presumably for the thawed sausages, and Martin watched him. Douglas’ dressing gown had a logo on the back suggesting that it had been lifted from a room at the Burj Al Arab, and it looked appropriately high class for that hotel, made of a dark blue silky material that fitted snugly across Douglas’ wide shoulders. The collar was cut to fall back at the neck, leaving an expanse of his pale skin bare, one brown freckle falling slightly off-centre of his spine; the sight made Martin’s fingers itch.

 

As Martin watched, Douglas’ shoulders rose and fell again - a long, weary sigh. “Look, Martin,” he said, still with his back turned. “You must recall that I didn’t know when I left here - whenever it was, last week sometime - that when I got back you’d be with me and you’d be staying overnight. God knows I would have done some more shopping and a tad more hoovering if I had. But this house is a shipwreck of a place, you can see that. Somehow I always manage to forget how it is until I’m back here myself. But I did…” his voice had gone quiet, perhaps even slightly rough. “I did _tell_ you it was like this.”

 

“I don’t know what to say,” Martin heard himself blurting out, sharp and too loud. He’d moved forward, pushed himself off from the counter, taken half a step towards Douglas and was now standing, arms hugged round himself, in the middle of the room.

 

“Douglas, I don’t… I’m nervous, you know I’m nervous and I want to say the right thing. I want to explain, I want to…” He gave a short laugh. “It’s a perfectly decent house, but I keep thinking about your wife and how she must have known what to do and say and how to be here and be right for you, and how it must have been easy, at least once. I want to get things right. And I don’t know what to say.”

 

Slowly, Douglas turned round to face him. There was a dash of high colour in his cheeks, and he might have been biting at the inside of his mouth before he spoke.

 

“You don’t normally have a problem expressing your opinion around me.”

 

Martin huffed. “Yes, well, things have changed, haven’t they? We’re not the same as we were before we went to Austria. And I don’t know what you want! I don’t know what I want! I’ve never been in a relationship longer than three months - I don’t know what there is to want, even!”

 

He took another step across the floor, hands raised now, aware of his pulse racing up to meet his flailing tongue. “And actually, yes, this house is depressing and… and cold, and too big and you are so lucky to have it and you don’t even realise that! I don’t know what I’m doing and that has always been something that, yes, makes me nervous, like you say, but I get through because I always do and I’m sorry if it looks like I’m cross with you or disapproving or angry about how much bloody carbohydrate you have in stock, because I just want to not ruin everything and for you not to be…”

 

He paused, breathless, and swallowed. “I want to make you happy,” he said, which felt like a stupid thing to actually say out loud, in real life. “And I don’t know what to say, so I was just trying not to say anything until I figured it out and, and… and I don’t know.”

 

He wasn’t sure, quite, whether he’d closed all the distance between them or whether Douglas had come forwards too. But they were face to face now. Douglas’ dressing gown was coming undone at the throat, falling away and revealing the lines of his collarbones and the salt-and-pepper scattering of chest hair.

 

“Martin,” Douglas said, and his voice was so low it was practically a growl. “I want to kiss you, and if I do can I state now that it is not an attempt to shut you up, more a symptom of the fact that when you do talk properly to me, _not_ kissing you is not a state of being I can sustain?”

 

Martin reached out and put his hand to the edge of Douglas’ dressing gown, where it cut across his collarbone, resting his palm only slowly, carefully, against the plane of Douglas’ chest.

 

“So kiss me then,” he said, voice wavering even as he tried to make it firm, and gasped in delight as Douglas moved suddenly against him, hands coming in to tilt his head up and lips coming down against his own.

 

Martin staggered backwards under the onslaught, carefully retreating over the floor till he could feel the counter-top pressing into his torso, leaning his weight on it and opening himself better to Douglas, legs spreading to let him in as close as possible.

 

They broke for a moment, breathless.

 

“I’m not really that surprised you make models for a secret hobby,” Martin confessed, panting. “Because you appreciate beautiful things and you’re good with your hands and if you care about something you have a much longer attention span than you generally make known.”

 

Douglas stared at him for a moment. “Yes, well, you should know all those things. You of all people.” And then, before Martin could demand further explanation, Douglas’ hands were slipping round Martin’s waist and Martin found himself lifted up to sit on the counter top. This raised him sufficiently that he had now to tilt his head down to keep kissing Douglas, and brought other parts of him most pleasingly in reach of Douglas’ hands.

 

The microwave pinged triumphantly, which startled them both for a second, mutually frozen before laughing at it and themselves, and coming close again.

 

“It’s _damp_ , you’re damp, you…” Douglas was saying, his hand having worked between them and found the apex of Martin’s desire. “Fuck, Martin…” And his fingers were questing behind the elastic of Martin’s boxers, tugging them down and out of the way. And then Douglas was leaning in, his head descending, his intentions clear.

 

“You don’t have… don’t have to…” Martin tried, pushing at him. “If you didn’t like it, before, you don’t have to – some people don’t, can’t, I mean…”

 

“Martin,” Douglas said, and his voice was low and very firm. It sent a shiver down Martin’s spine, and a warm rush of pleasure too, that sound; the sound of Douglas, sounding sure of himself. “Do you remember that time when there was that thing that you didn’t know whether I could do or not, and it turned out I couldn’t? No?”

 

Martin gave him a fairly gentle clout round the ear. “That doesn’t mean you have to be able to… to…. to go down on me right away just because you want to.”

 

“Well, do you want me to?” Douglas’ hand wandered south again, and teased lightly, fingers soft and fluttering now, and Martin squirmed where he sat and tried to bring his knees together.

 

“Douglas!” He protested, reaching out to grasp hold of the lapels of the dressing gown, which had now fallen completely open, leaving Douglas entirely on display before him and quite evidently not in the slightest turned off by the act under consideration. “This is what I mean. This. You asking me that. Because of course I want you to, but I don’t want you to be uncomfortable or… or think I need you to prove anything or… I don’t know what the right answer is. I don’t know what to say.”

 

“You can tell me what you’re feeling, like you just did, like you did before, back in _Von Trapp-am-See_.”

 

“But I didn’t give an answer.”

 

“Fair enough, but what you did say made me feel more than ever like I really, really want to try and do this for you. And for me too, really, because believe me when I say it’s a fantasy of mine. And if you think I’m good with my hands, you should try my mouth. Honestly.”

 

“Douglas!” Martin protested, and pulled him close to bite at his shoulder with frustration and gratefulness and yet more of that pure, overreaching need to connect that he’d never felt with anyone else. It was a reaction Douglas seemed to enjoy, but before Martin had time to explore that avenue any further, Douglas was easing back again, and encouraging Martin to shuffle back over the counter towards the wall, legs still spread, making it less of a difficult bend for Douglas to reach him.

 

Martin looked down at himself, at the size of erection he’d produced after so little direct stimulation, at the smears it was leaving on his skin as it pressed against his stomach, another little pulse coming along under the scrutiny; he blushed and could see the flush spread over his chest and down, and still he seemed to get harder.

 

“I like you too,” Douglas told him, smiling, and Martin took a look between Douglas’ legs and closed his eyes against his own surge of heat at the sight, whimpering again and feeling the wetness on his stomach grow. “Now, can I?”

 

“Any time you like,” Martin hissed, and pulled him in for a kiss, hard and fast and deep, before gently guiding his head down, letting go as soon as his own acquiescence was clear, to leave Douglas free to move as he chose.

 

Douglas wasn’t entirely confident, that much was evident. But perhaps he knew now that that might prove a better strategy – he seemed to have learnt the lessons of the day before, and didn’t make any attempt to take all at once or overcome his gag reflex by force of will. His lips caressed at the head of Martin’s cock, his tongue following, tentative, and Martin bit at his own fist.

 

The flat of Douglas’ tongue smeared over the tip of him, and Martin whined behind his teeth and forced himself to keep still.

 

“It’s not an entirely bad taste, actually, is it?” Douglas murmured, barely drawing back, his breath warm and moist. He leant in again, and this time, just gently, suckled at Martin’s cockhead, tongue pressing, pushing, parting.

 

Martin’s head went back against the wall and he gasped out something half a laugh, half a breathless moan. His flailing hand found the handle on the microwave door and gripped it hard. One of Douglas’ hands had come to gently hold Martin’s cock still as he mouthed at the head, and now the other had stolen lower and his fingers were fluttering again, against Martin’s balls as they grew full and heavy.

 

He would need no more than this, Martin was sure, and then Douglas opened his mouth wide with a bone-trembling sigh and started moving his head rather slowly up and down, making a carpet of his tongue, and Martin strained, whimpering, to get his legs open wider and reached to put his free hand on Douglas’ shoulder, having to touch him somewhere.

 

A loss of pressure; Douglas had taken his steadying hand from Martin’s cock, was moving his mouth on it further, taking it more deeply. His now free hand found Martin’s and was gripping it tightly, his thumb stroking over Martin’s knuckles, soothing him in one place as he sent him frenzied in another, and Martin only hoped Douglas knew how good he was making him feel, except that he probably did because Martin rather suspected the noise in the room was him babbling, given that Douglas had his mouth full.

 

Douglas broke away, gasping a bit, coughing slightly, glancing up, uncertain and apologetic and Martin curled in and kissed him, the side of his temple and the corner of his eyes and his cheekbone and his chin, as Douglas moved up to meet him, grinning now.

 

It was hard to kiss properly; they were both panting. Douglas drew back and looked Martin up and down, and licked his lips, and leant down again, his mouth so hot after the chill room air on Martin’s wet, sensitized skin, and Martin moaned again and rocked, and fought to stop himself and be steady.

 

And Martin could feel it circling up through his thighs, the warm, tingling onrush of his orgasm, his balls fully drawn up now, tight and tender, Douglas’ hand teasing against them just light enough to be perfect and unbearable as the heat of his mouth slid and slid and slid.

 

“I’m, oh Douglas, I’m, I’m, move, you need to move…” Martin pushed with their joined hands and let out a wild half-kick with one foot, and Douglas pulled away just in time, and moved his free hand to take up the sweet, slick pressure, milking it out of him as Martin came with a cry all against them both, twenty-four hours of frustration let free in great long spurts of release.

 

“Fuck, Martin,” he could hear Douglas saying, in a blur, in the background. “We are doing that again. A lot.”

 

“Great,” Martin opined, weakly, resting back against the lovely, cool wall for a moment, not even able to rouse much worry about how he must look, all splayed and spent.

 

But, no, there were things even he could work out needed to be said.

 

“It was great,” he repeated, rather more firmly, and made himself sit up, reaching out. “Douglas, it was… you were…”

 

Douglas let himself be drawn back in. Kissed him again. His mouth was bitter-sharp with the taste of Martin’s body. “Yes, I know,” he said, smiling. “I was there.” But even with the smirk and the easy words, his hand found Martin’s again in a hard, hungry grip.

 

“What would you like?” Martin asked him, and got his legs open and snared Douglas in more closely against him, chuckling at the sound it made him make. And he was still a mess and this had to look ridiculous and a kitchen was no kind of place to do this, but Douglas was smiling at him and looking pleased and proud, so he didn’t care.

 

That was a change in him, with Douglas. Or not a change – perhaps more of a liberation.  

 

“We could go somewhere more horizontal and less granite?” Martin suggested. He trailed his ankle up the back of Douglas’ thigh and over the soft curve of his arse, enjoying the stretch it put in his muscles. Relief and release had left him feeling warm and limber and only keen to share the feeling. “Because if you wanted to… to be inside me, you could. Some men don’t like it, after, but I do, if it’s gentle, and you are. Or I could…”

 

He was cut off by Douglas, by a high, desperate noise and a kiss, Douglas leaning up against him fierce and fast. “Keep talking,” Douglas gasped. “Come on. Keep on. Tell me.”

 

Martin froze. “Um. I don’t…”

 

“What could we do? Tell me? Please? I’m…” and Douglas took their still-joined hands and brought them down to where he was hard and heavy and hot between them. With Martin back on the edge of the counter, Douglas could fairly easily rub against him and now his cock slipped into the bend between Martin’s hip and thigh, Martin finding the movement on his heated skin far more thrilling in itself than it had any right to be.

 

Martin bit his lip. “Well… Like I say, you could… be inside me. Or in my mouth. Or I suppose… I mean, if you wanted to, only if you wanted to, but I could try touching inside you? Did you ever try that?”

 

Douglas’ cock twitched against Martin’s skin and he made another sound. It wasn’t clearly affirmation or denial. He’d hung his head, looking down, his gaze averted and he was blushing fiercely.

 

“If you hate the idea that’s, you know, fine,” Martin said, and reached to rest his hand on Douglas’ shoulder, moving to hold the back of his neck. “But you’ve seen how much I like it. You might? It can be good, and I’ve got thin fingers, small ones, and I’d be slow and careful, like you were with me. I’d… I’d….”

 

It was hard to keep going, because his brain kept threatening to catch up with his mouth and panic him, but this was a new world, a new territory, and Douglas was hot and needing and straining against him, holding his hand so tight like someone being lead through a place either fearful or wonderful. Douglas hated his house, his home, but Martin had him now, and this was new and alien and terrifying, and beyond precious.

 

“I’d… I’d open you up slowly,” Martin promised, his voice getting husky now. He trailed his hand down Douglas’ chest, angling to press against Douglas’ cock as it rested against him. “I’d go so slowly, all by the book, you know me.” He heard Douglas shake out something a like a laugh, and leant out to quickly kiss the side of his neck. Douglas was trembling; he was still standing, of course, and Martin tried to encourage him to lean more onto himself and the counter.

 

Martin’s mouth was still hidden close in to Douglas’ skin as he spoke again, keeping the blushing heat between them, even as Douglas’ hips thrust faster. “I’d make it feel so nice before I… before I pushed any further, and I’d take it one step at a time and I’d find the places that feel the most… the nicest, and just keep at those, over and over, till you learned to like it and want it and know that if I got inside you, me inside you, my… my c-cock, it would feel even more…”

 

Douglas came then, on a hiss that was half a sob, and Martin had to clear his own throat as he reached for him, hugging him close and stroking his back and holding him up, kissing his neck and half his ear over and over, rocking and murmuring.

 

“Speaking purely as an observer,” Douglas muttered at last, drawing back a little, blinking and flushed, his eyes dark. “I would argue that you are not without your strengths in finding things to say.”

 

Martin gave him a shove, and blushed some more. “That was different. You helped me.”

 

“I want to help you,” Douglas told him, earnest suddenly, eyes gone focused and intense. Then he paused, nodded, looked up again. “I want us to help each other,” he said, firm and distinct.

 

Martin licked his lips, let the words form in his mouth and then spoke them. “OK. That sounds like a plan.”

 

\- - -

Four

\- - -

 

“How long is the garage open until, anyway?” Douglas asked.

 

Martin blinked at him for a moment. They were in the downstairs shower together. Martin had not been thinking about garages.

 

“To collect your van?” Douglas sighed, and again as Martin’s eyes widened in astonishment. “I do pay some attention, you know.”

 

“Half past five, and I know you do.” Martin shook his head. “I wasn’t surprised you’d remembered, I was surprised I’d forgotten.”

 

Douglas, contemplating him, raised an eyebrow. “I think I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

 

“Well, naturally.”

 

Douglas narrowed his eyes at him, and reached out.

 

“Uh, Douglas? Douglas!” Martin shivered and protested, but somehow hadn’t quite yet pulled back from the hand that now explored between his legs. “Douglas, that isn’t going to help me get to the garage.”

 

“Isn’t it?” Douglas asked, all innocence.

 

Martin huffed and did move now, despite how nice it felt. “No. Now listen, how about… how would you like to come with me? Bus to the garage, get the van, go to the big ASDA at Hightrees and get, well, bread for a start? I could just drop it off here, I don’t have to stay or anything, but I thought…” he tailed off, uncertainty as usual outpacing him again.

 

Douglas had looked rather surprised, at first, but he smiled now, and reached out again, stroking the backs of his fingers slow and careful over Martin’s face.

 

“Martin,” he said, solemnly. “Keep talking.”

 

\- - -


End file.
